12:07 . 26/06
The 7ha olive garden in Araksashen, Meghry region, the only one in the republic, yields at least 10 tons of harvest annually. A resident of Lehvaz village, Karo Karapetyan, 50, planted a garden of 3400 olive trees of two types- Askolana and Seveliano in the place of a former dried vineyard. The olive trees were brought from Spain, Armenpress reports.
It took the farmer four years to have an olive garden.
“At the beginning I planted 7590 trees, unfortunately all were frostbitten. I tried again in 2003. This time, hail damaged the trees. I got the first harvest only in 2010,’’ Karo Karapetyan told the visitors.
According to him, each tree yields 20-30 kg harvest annually. One of the two types is very oily. Studies have shown the pulp of that type contains up to 70 percent olive oil, the stone containing 27-33 percent oil.
Although the harvest is ecologically pure, Karapetyan faces a problem of selling the yield.
“Currently, I have to sell the yield to resellers at a price of 1200 AMD per one kg. In Armenia it is still difficult to sell olive at a normal price,” Karapetyan noted.
The olive harvest starts in mid September in Araksashen , while in Spain and Greece olive is harvested in November.
